Iowa Same-Sex Birth Certificates

In Iowa, Senator McCoy introduces a bill so that gay and lesbian parents could have their names written on the birth certificate of their child when Governor Terry Branstad will appeal a Court ruling that ordered state health officials to write the names of 2 lesbian mothers on their daughter's birth certificate.

District Judge Eliza Ovrom ruled in January that state health officials must issue the birth certificate to Melissa Gartner, 41, and Heather Gartner, 40, of Des Moines, who have a daughter, MacKenzie, born through anonymous donor insemination as reports DesMoinesRegister but Governeur Branstad will appeal this decision.

Health Department spokeswoman Polly Carver-Kimm told DesMoinesRegister that the Iowa Department of Public Health has filed the appeal because it specifically addresses a situation in which a child is born to married lesbian mothers who conceive through the use of an anonymous sperm donor, but does not address the birth of children to married gays and lesbians who conceive in alternate ways.

As for Senator McCoy, he will introduce a bill in order that this kind of situation does not happen anymore and that the name of the two parents appear on the birth certificate but it would seem that the bill won't pass.